Centralized data centers are facilities for maintaining information technology (IT) infrastructures, which include computers, communications, and other electronic equipment. The IT infrastructure may also include power supplies for powering the equipment, environmental controls for cooling the equipment and power supplies, and security systems for protecting the equipment. Specialized systems called data center managers or data center management systems are used by data center operations personnel to centrally—and to some extent, automatically—monitor and control the data center infrastructure in real-time. A central server communicates with the various other devices over a communications network to collect operational data, issue commands, and manage inventory, among other functions.
Operations personnel typically interact with the data center manager using a client device, such as a personal computer connected to the data center manager. The client runs software that is configured to provide a user interface to the data center manager. Typically, the client user interface enables the user to monitor the status of many pieces of equipment within the data center. However, this requires that each piece of equipment be named or otherwise identified in a human-readable manner that allows the user to distinguish one piece of equipment from another and know where each piece of equipment is physically located within the data center.